Tuesday, February 5, 2013

The train has left Salem Station, feathers floating in the breeze over the steaming kettles of tar. The mob has reached its decision, via a unanimous round of applause, and now America is giving the world a free lesson in why sportswriters do not cover wars, politics and criminal justice.

Today's submission comes from U.S. Appeals Court Justice Bill Madden, penning his decision in the Southern District Daily News on CHILDREN OF U.S.A. vs A. RODRIGUEZ. In his ruling, Justice Maddon invokes the Chandra Levy statute of 2001, contending that when a celebrity on media trial declines interviews, he/she is, in fact, admitting guilt. The venerable justice writes:

If A-Rod truly is a victim here, his reputation smeared, his career in
such jeopardy, then why is he in hiding? Why isn’t he shouting to the
world he is innocent? Why isn’t he calling his teammates, assuring them
all these damning things they’ve been reading about him — purchasing HGH
and testosterone from Bosch's clinic, receiving house calls for
personal injections from Bosch — are all B.S., made up by forces out to
destroy him? Why hasn’t he reached out to the commissioner of baseball,
Bud Selig, to tell him the same thing?

Judge Madden's reason is ironclad. Clearly, A-Rod - by merely issuing a denial, and by not touring the talk shows with Kleenex in hand- is pleading guilty. And the Judge notes that A-Rod's worst crime - as they always are with monsters - is against the children. The children of America.

What about those kids he addressed... If he's so innocent, don’t you think he owes those kids a personal
assurance that he’s still everything he portrayed himself to be?

It hurts, thinking of impressionable kids who read the A-Rod attacks and wonder, "Why isn't he talking to Ellen?" Meanwhile, elsewhere at the Southern District court system, three Daily News judges today teamed for a story that portrays A-Rod as a paranoid conspiracy nutjob, obsessed with the idea that the Yankee brass (historically, Madden's go-to sources) and MLB are out to hang him.

Sources say the embattled Yankee star is “scared” that bigger forces are
at work to try to discredit him and sink his career. Holed up in Miami,
Rodriguez has been huddling with an army of lawyers and PR people as
the performance-enhancing drug scandal enveloping him intensifies.

Everybody, all together now: W.T.F?

Listen: This is supposed to be a humor site. As in, hahahaha. We should not be the lone atoll in the Yankiverse that defends somebody from a media lynch mob. Yeesh. We should be in the mob, hurling feces; we weren't big A-Rod backers to begin with. There's no funny stuff here. There's nothing to be gained.

But we're are watching something worse than one drug scandal (in a vast, polluted sea of PEDs, by the way.) We are watching a person - yes, an overpaid, egotistical jerk - get railroaded out of New York by a media that is nestled happily in the hip pocket of a franchise ownership, which simply wants to bank more money from the taxpayer-financed team.

When they finish with A-Rod, be assured that the Yankees next move will be to start negotiating a long-term deal with Robbie Cano - that is, assuming he doesn't bolt, having seen how the team and its independent U.S. Justice System treats aging stars.

It's open season on A-Rod. We're still in the Death Valley of the sports calendar. Football is done. Baseball isn't here yet. A-Rod's name in a headline generates clicks. (We've certainly learned that.) Write anything, Gammonites! All aboard, everybody! We're leaving Salem Station. Never mind that ticket-taker with the three heads! Disregard the boiling red tar. Next stop - hmm, that's strange... Salem Station!

Off topic, but I see that A-Rod's replacement has finally deigned to respond to Joba: http://espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/story/_/id/8917968/joba-chamberlain-new-york-yankees-receives-text-message-kevin-youkilis